Although figures for Irish downloads are not yet available, experts believe that in a market where physical record sales are in decline, the impact of digital music will be significant. And it may mean that country-tinged Irish records . . .

perennially popular among local record buyers . . . may not perform as strongly in future charts. Pat Short's Breakfast Roll might have provided the meat and veg in the charts for weeks on end, but according to Irma (Irish Recorded Music Association), the organisation that oversees the charts, the song would be unlikely to fare so well if digital downloads were to be factored in. "Some songs have very specific markets, " said Clive Leacy of Irma. "The downloads on that wouldn't have been significant."

The UK began compiling a digital chart two years ago, and has been combining physical and digital sales since April last year. The first song to reach number one in the combined UK chart on digital sales alone was Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy', which hit the top spot at the end of March in advance of its physical release. Although Irish artists have benefited from the digital chart in the UK . . . Westlife's 'Flying Without Wings' was the first number one in the downloadonly chart . . . the Irish music business has been slow to adopt the new chart. "One of the biggest problems is that broadband penetration here is quite low, " says Leacy. "It's only between 10% and 15%. However, we are aware that a lot of people download in their lunchbreak at their place of work. Most companies now have broadband, so the downloads are likely to be significantly higher than the broadband rollout might suggest."

Certainly, in terms of ringtones, Irish mobile phone users rank among the world's most prolific downloaders. Fraser McAllister, who organises real and ringtone downloads for Vodafone, says we are second only to the Japanese in terms of pimping our phones. "It's been phenomenally successful, " he says, "it's a very ripe market.

But in terms of licensing music for real tones, it has been a hard graft in Ireland. It's been slow, but once real tones are included in the Irma charts, it will change the landscape of the music business."

Irma figures show that physical CD sales have declined so steadily over the last five years that it now takes only a couple of thousand sales to secure an Irish number one single, while one Irish act recently found itself in the top five after selling only 300 CDs.